


Numbers

by finsbury_park



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Feelings, Fluff, One Shot, Post-Lethal White, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:35:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finsbury_park/pseuds/finsbury_park
Summary: Robin and Cormoran spent a day in bed together; there's too much wine, and a few confessions.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott & Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 9
Kudos: 116





	Numbers

“I’ve never done this before, stayed in bed all day with someone.” 

Robin rolls over onto her stomach and reaches for her glass of wine on the side table. It had been raining earlier, but now the sky has cleared and the sun is setting through the dusty skylight, giving the room a warm, ethereal glow. The Arsenal t-shirt she grabbed from Strike’s top drawer rides up as she resettles on her stomach, pillow under her chest, cheeky lace shorts peeking out under the overly large shirt, feet in the air. She takes a long drink, staring up at Strike where he sits in the window. “I’m sure you have, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Smoke curls up behind his head, from the lit cigarette he’s holding out of the window. He’s defensive, but there’s a joking note to his voice. 

Her appraising eyes rove over his body, still not used to this; he’s dressed only in his boxers, and his hair is, impossibly, messier than usual. It’s half-eight, and they haven’t left the bed all day, unless you count the ten minutes when Strike popped out to grab pastries and coffee late in the morning. Or the trip Robin took downstairs to grab the delivery in the afternoon. It turns out spending the day in bed is a very appetite-inducing activity, Robin thinks. Or perhaps it’s just that Cormoran is around, and he needs to be fed at regular intervals. He seems even hungrier than usual, despite - or perhaps because of - his newfound fitness, the swimming and exercises he’s finally started doing for his leg.

Robin runs a finger around the edge of her wine glass. “Well… I just mean you’re -” she pauses, looking for the right words, “- more experienced than me.” A blush spreads across her cheeks, threatening to spill down her neck - but perhaps it’s just the wine. They’ve been drinking since the early afternoon. 

Cormoran reaches for his wine glass, balancing precariously with his arm braced on the window frame. He takes his time with his drink, thinking about his answer. “Robin, I think you think I’ve been with more women than I have.” 

“Well, how many?” she counters. It comes out more forcefully than she means it to. 

He’s not sure how to answer that. She can see the uncertainty in his face, and wishes she hadn’t said anything. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m drunk, and it’s none of my business,” says Robin, blush spreading down her neck, under the stretched out neck of the old t-shirt. 

“No, it’s okay, I’ll tell you - it is your business. There’s no point in us pretending we don’t have a past - it’s just - well - I don’t want you to compare yourself to me. I’m older than you, and you were with the same person since sixth form.” Strike takes a drag from his cigarette, looking at her with knit brows, studying her face in that way she’s familiar with; he’s figuring out a puzzle, looking for the truth hidden in this conversation. 

“Well that’s not really fair, I mean you were with the same person for sixteen years,” Robin counters. 

He shakes his head. “Not really the same. On and off again. More off than on. And every time she broke up with me I’d go drown my sorrows with someone else.” 

“Why would she break up with you?” Robin asks quietly, not really sure where this conversation is going, wanting answers but not wanting to pry. 

“Didn’t like my job, didn’t like my friends, thought I looked at another woman the wrong way.” Strike pauses to take another long drag, blowing smoke out into the darkening night. “Now you’re going to ask me why I kept going back, that’s the logical next part of this conversation.” 

“No.” She stares at him straight on. He’s had occasion before to think she can read his mind. “I wasn’t going to ask that.” 

She didn’t know exactly why he’d stayed - or at least why he’d returned again and again - but she could imagine it felt something like what she’d felt with Matthew, having so much history, so much shared life together, wanting to fix things, wanting so badly not give up on something that was long dead. Silence fills the room, broken only by the noises of a London evening; distant conversations and car brakes squealing, doors slamming. Robin takes a deep breath. It seems like the time for confessions. “You know I almost left him. I called you.” 

“When?” 

“On our honeymoon. We only went so we could get away from our families. Figure things out on neutral ground. I called you because I needed to hear your voice - ” Robin clears her throat, willing herself to get it all out in the open. “A woman picked up your phone. It sounded like you two were… I mean, it didn’t matter, I still decided to end things. Then Matt got sick, he had an infection from a scratch from some coral…” She pauses, thinking about how many little things had changed everything, about choices made and unspoken feelings. She forged on. “ - And I chickened out, and that’s how I spent a year with someone who I wasn’t even in love with. And who ended up cheating on me and drawing out the world’s longest and most petty divorce.” She took a deep gulp of wine, finishing the wine and staring into the empty glass. 

Strike lets it wash over him, this realization she could have been his so much earlier. He looks back at Robin, wishing desperately he could light another cigarette, but his next pack is in the other room. 

“I called  _ you _ ,” he says. 

“What?”

He readjusts on the windowsill, the ledge is starting to bite uncomfortably into his leg, but he wants to get this out. “I was in a hotel, hiding from the press. I left my phone charger at home, so I didn’t have your cell number, but I called directory and got your home in Masham. Your dad answered and said you were on your honeymoon, so I figured you’d worked things out. I got drunk and lonely and …” He rubs a hand through his messy hair, apologetic. “And that happened. I guess that’s what I do when I get drunk and lonely. She was just a one night stand.” 

Robin lets this revelation wash over her. “So we both called each other.” 

“What were you going to say?” 

“I don’t know - I just wanted to hear your voice - I was just figuring it out as I went along... you?”

“Yeah, something like that.” A smile is playing at the edge of his lips. 

Robin’s smiling too. “So these past few years, I could have skipped them? Being cheated on, being miserable, losing my best friend?”

His heart skips a beat. Her divorce has been settled a few months ago, and they’ve been sleeping together for a few weeks now, but she’s never called him that before, her best friend, and somehow it means more than he thought it would. He lets out a low laugh. “We’re pretty fucking stupid.” 

“And bloody stubborn.” She smiles back at him, eyes bright. “Do you want another?” She reaches for his almost empty glass, looking for an excuse to get out of the room for a second, space to let these new pieces of information fall into place. Her bare feet softly pad out of the room, and Strike braces himself off the window, swinging himself into the bed, sitting up against the pillows and enjoying the feeling of warmth from where Robin’s body had been lying on the sheets.

Robin returns with two very full glasses of wine, and settles herself at the foot of the bed, legs crossed, passing one over to Strike. “You didn’t answer my question.” 

“Which one?” he asks innocently. He knows exactly which one. 

She rolls her eyes, taking a sip. “How many women have you been with?” 

He takes a deep breath, doing some calculations in his head. Robin is looking at him shrewdly, and he still can’t decide if he should be completely honest. “Somewhere between fifteen and twenty?” 

“You don’t remember?” she says, incredulous. 

“Well, there were some very drunken one-night stands.” He thinks some more. “Seventeen.”

“Wow.” 

“Are you judging me? I'm forty, that's an average of less than one a year over twenty-five years -”

She cuts him off. “You were fifteen when you lost your virginity?” 

Strike grunts a reply and takes a sip of wine to avoid explaining, but Robin looks at him expectantly.

“Fine. I was big for my age.” Robin chokes a bit on her wine. He grins at her. “Get your mind out of the gutter. Tall, I was tall. And good at talking to people, making new friends.” Robin looks amused. “She was older than me. I was the mysterious drifter who’d just come back to school from the big city. What can I say? This isn’t a jealousy thing, is it? It doesn’t feel like it.” 

“No, I  _ am _ jealous. I mean not of the women, it’s your life, it’s in the past, I’m not judging - really I’m not - I mean I’m jealous of your experiences.” She readjusts, holding her wine glass up while she settles beside him on her side.

“Would you like to put this on hold so you can go sleep around?” 

“No, that's not what I meant --”

“I'm joking. Seriously Robin, it’s more than experience -” He’s searching for words to assuage her fears, make her feel better about their lop-sided respective levels of experience, because he’s pretty sure he doesn’t need to ask her the question, he knows that it’s just Matt. And now him. “It’s the connection you have with someone. The level of trust you have with each other. That’s what makes this great.” He reaches out for her hand not holding the wine and gives it a squeeze. 

Robin’s eyes are unfocused, lost in thought. 

“I think - I didn’t really admit to myself how shit it really was. The last few years. It was just so - boring - especially,” she’s blushing now, “this.” She gestures to the bed. “I don’t think I realized how much better it could be.” She looks at him through her lashes and gives him a cheeky smile, and Cormoran feels a sharp sense of pride in his skills, his ego stretching luxuriously, that he’s managed to make this beautiful woman feel so good. 

She continues. “I mean it, Cormoran. it doesn’t bother me… not the number, it’s the women; you’ve dated a lot of very beautiful and talented women. I mean, supermodels, socialites…” she trails off. 

“You have no idea, do you?” 

“What?” 

“How beautiful you are.” 

She wrinkles her nose, looking down at her glass of wine. “You’re drunk.” 

“I may be. But you’re still stunning.” 

There’s a blush spreading across her cheeks. What kind of twat was Matthew, thinks Strike, that she doesn’t even see this. How had he not told her, every single day, how beautiful she was. He shifts himself closer to her, taking her wine glass from her hand and setting it on the side table. He turns back, rolling onto his side, face inches away from hers. 

“Your hair is the perfect colour of strawberry gold - I love when the sun shines behind you in the office and it makes a halo around your head.” He runs a hand through her hair, and Robin just stares at him, barely breathing, not really believing this is happening. 

“Cormoran, you're drunk.” 

“So are you. And I love your freckles, and the way you smell, and you have wonderful legs, and an even better ass. I have to stop myself from staring at you in the office like a troll. Seriously. It’s a miracle I get any work done at all.” She’s laughing now, and blushing, of course, but he’s not done. “And the thing I love the most,” and here Robin’s breath catches as he uses that word again, her heart is stuttering in her chest, “is you. Not how you look, but being around you. I want to spend time with you. I want to talk to you - when we’re working on a case and I find a lead, you’re the first person I want to call, because I love talking to you.” He pauses, his eyes boring into hers. “Now can I show you?” 

“Show me what?” she replies quietly. 

“How much I want to be with you.” His hand trails down her arm to the hem of the t-shirt, and he slowly pulls it up. He lays her back on the bed, slowly, deliberately, taking off her clothes and laying her bare on his bed, in his tiny, run-down flat, under the glow of the street lamps filtering in from the skylight. He trails kisses down her freckled skin, and she closes her eyes in perfect contentment, stretching her body and reaching for his soft, curly head. Cormoran trails his way back to her face, kissing her bee-stung lips expertly and slowly, pulling her arms above her head and trapping them with one large hand. 

His stubble grazes down her cheek, and he whispers into her ear. “Just so you know” - his breath is warm and his scarred lip grazes feather-light across her ear - “this is the best sex I’ve ever had.” 

“Right.” Robin makes a small sound of disbelief, and he can feel her rolling her eyes. He stops, gently turns her face to his. “I mean it, Robin.”

She stares back at him, and his breath is taken away - for the hundredth time in the past few weeks, he thinks - by her gaze, those blue-grey eyes. “Yeah?” she asks.

“Fuck, yes. I would happily never get out of this bed again.” 

She laughs at him, and he smiles, returning to the task at hand. He works his way down her body, kisses and stubble making her shiver, and he thinks to himself that he really isn’t exaggerating. He can’t put his finger on it, what’s different, but it does feel  _ so _ different. There's an honesty to her, no facade; he’s been with women who were enthusiastic, erotically gifted, and yet something about her empathetic and headstrong personality comes out in the bedroom, where he thought she might be shy and reserved, she’s open and passionate and - she’s everything. 

Robin wakes up the next morning to the sounds of a London morning and a shower running; she stretches and runs a hand over the rumpled sheets next to her, still warm from Cormoran’s body heat. She stares up at the dusty skylight, happier than she’s been in - years? Her mind wanders over the events of yesterday morning, afternoon and night, and she blushes, thinking of everything Cormoran said, the way he touched her and made her feel, rubbing her legs together absentmindedly, running a hand up her naked torso into her hair, stretching happily. Get a grip, she thinks to herself, you’ve spent the past thirty-six hours in this bed. This insatiable appetite, no wonder Cormoran has had his share of gorgeous women, who wouldn’t want to feel like this. She closes her eyes, curling up in the tousled sheets that smell like sex and Cormoran’s intoxicating mix of smoke and cologne. As she drifts back into sleep, it crosses her mind that this intoxication, this rush of romance and sexual energy and - head over heels love - isn’t going to last forever; she hopes it’s going to mature into something sustainable and long-term - but she’s going to enjoy every second of it right now. 

Cormoran steps into the doorway, towel around his waist, his thick pelt of chest hair damp from the shower, one muscular arm bracing himself on the doorway, and looks at the bed. Robin’s eyes are closed and she’s tangled in the sheets, looking (and here he smiles to himself) well-fucked, freckled skin rosy and flushed from the past thirty-six hours, lips bruised and swollen from his kisses, and numbers drift through his head. He’s forty, not getting any younger. She’s ten years younger than him. There’s the ghosts of those seventeen women, some with more baggage and memories than others, the pairs of his conventionally married friends and family who’ve been pushing him into this for months, but he finally settles on a single number: ‘one.’ It’s the only number he needs now; just this one, perfect woman. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in a folder for a while; watching the new season has brought back all the feelings, so I finally finished it off. Thanks for reading!


End file.
